What is the specificity principle describe the concept in terms of physical activity

Specificity

SpecificityDan Jackson2016-03-02T06:53:46+10:00

The principle of specificity means that adaptations to training are specific to the training. Specificity applies to the muscle group trained, the speed of training, the intensity of training, the movements of training and the energy systems utilised. Specificity is that physiological adaptations only occur in response to the stress placed on the body and only to the sections that experience this stress.

Specificity means if you participate in an aerobic sport such as marathon running, you need to do aerobic training that involves running so that your adaptations improve your performance in that sport. Training should be done at a pace and in an environment that best replicates competition in order to get the best specific gains or adaptations for competition. Continuous training, such as running outside, becomes the best method because it specifically reflects the marathon sport.

Specificity when applied to resistance training requires that the muscle groups used in the sport are the ones trained. Training should also seek to replicate similar movements from the sport at a similar speed. Strength training for swimming would then use a lat pull-down to replicate the pulling movement of swimming, at the most efficient swimming movement speed to increase strength at that speed for that movement in swimming.

To get results from your exercise routine, you must follow certain principles. Failure to adhere to these principles may mean you see very little benefit from your workouts. Exercise training principles are based on overload, recovery, progression, reversibility and specificity. The principle of specificity is especially important if you are exercising to achieve a particular goal such as increased strength or improved aerobic fitness.

Definition

Exercise is a form of stress. Your body adapts to the stresses you place upon it. This is the essence of specificity. Another term used in exercise science is SAID -- Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. This principle states your body will get better at the type of exercise you choose to do. The physiological adaptations you experience as a result of regular exercise depend on the type of exercise you perform.

Adaptations

By exercising in a particular way, you expose your body to an increased workload to which it will adapt. For example, if you lift weights regularly using heavy weights and low repetitions, your muscles will get stronger. This happens because your muscles get bigger and your nervous system becomes better able to recruit multiple motor units at the same time. Conversely, if you run long distances, your heart and lungs become more efficient and your cardiovascular endurance will improve. This results in an improved ability to take in, transport and utilize oxygen.

Exercise Selection

Seemingly similar exercises often stress your body in dissimilar ways. If you want to improve your ability to run long distances, cycling may appear to offer an alternative method of training. While cycling and running offer many similar benefits, they use your muscles in quite different ways. This means cardiovascular fitness gained through cycling will not entirely transfer to running, and improvements gained through running will not entirely transfer to cycling. The same applies to resistance training exercises. Enhancing your ability to leg press large weights will have a minimal impact in your ability to squat -- although the movement patterns are similar, they are sufficiently different that benefits from one will not exactly transfer to the other.

Movement Speed

The speed at which you perform a given movement also results in very specific adaptations. If you wanted to increase your punching speed for boxing, you might think performing heavy bench presses would help. However, because of the heavy load used in the bench press, the movement is very slow -- especially compared to throwing a punch. According to the SAID principle, lifting heavy weights slowly will result in an increased ability to lift heavy weights slowly and have minimal impact on movements such as punching speed. High-velocity medicine ball exercises such as chest presses will not result in an increased ability to bench press heavy weights despite the fact the movement patterns are quite similar.

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Everyone who takes any kind of formal education in exercise science is taught about the Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand (SAID) or “specificity” principle. In strength training, the specificity principle describes how strength gains are very often quite specific to the type of training we perform.

In other words, it says that strength gains are greatest when tested with the same characteristics as used in the training program. This sounds fairly simple. And yet, people interpret it in different ways.

It is just the specificity principle!

Over the last couple of years, I have been writing detailed articles and posting up studies that clarify the different ways in which strength training produces quite specific adaptations, depending on the way in which the training program is set up.

When I post up this kind of information, of the most common responses I receive from online commentators is that “this is just the specificity principle.”

They clearly believe that by saying this, they are telling me that:

• I should never investigate further when reports show strength gains that are specific after strength training, and that
• they are somehow explaining the mechanism by which these specific strength gains occur, and thereby clarifying the effect to everyone’s satisfaction.

They are mistaken, and I think this is because they are confused about what “principle” actually means and achieves this context.

What does “principle” mean?

Without trying to take into consideration every possible way in which a word can be used, there are basically two ways in which the term “principle” gets used in exercise science.

Firstly, there is the fundamental principle, which is a universally applicable or nearly universally applicable phenomenon.

A good example of this is Henneman’s size principle, which states that motor units are always recruited in size order from low-threshold to high-threshold, in response to the need to produce or maintain muscle force. Despite many attempts to disprove the size principle, it has held true for decades, and the most recent research indicates that the finding is extremely robust, even during eccentric contractions.

When we are dealing with fundamental principles, we don’t need to be too curious if they are followed. In contrast, we should be be *extremely* curious when they are violated (although we should probably assume that it is our measuring equipment that is wrong, initially).

Secondly, there are general principles.

In strength and conditioning, we only have a few general principles, which are: progressive overload, individuality, specificity, and variation. These are essentially guidelines that we follow in order to devise strength training programs.

Importantly, general principles are observations that cannot always be relied upon (although they very often can). We should therefore be curious about when they are followed, and also when they are violated, so that we can understand them better.

The reason that general principles are not always followed is because they are produced by a range of underlying factors, or mechanisms.

For example, while it is a principle that different individuals will respond to the same strength training program in different ways, there are tens (if not hundreds) of ways in which two people can differ from each other. So although the principle of individuality is a valid observation, it does not explain anything.

On the other hand, differences in prevailing muscle fiber type or baseline strength levels might, and this shows that we need to drop down a level from general principles to find a mechanism.

And this is the same for the principle of specificity.

While it generally holds true, if we want to understand it, we need to drop down a level to find the mechanism or mechanisms that apply in each individual case.

What does the “specificity principle” mean?

The expression the “specificity principle” is a description that serves to remind us to expect that strength gains will be specific to the type of strength training we perform.

Researchers coined the expression because they observed experimentally that this happened more often than not.

If we turn this around, and think of the principle of specificity as an explanation for why strength gains are specific, we end up with a circular reference, like this:

This means that even with the specificity principle in place, we still need to determine the mechanisms by which strength is specific.

What is the takeaway?

The specificity principle is a principle in the same way that basic strength and conditioning principles like progressive overload, individuality, and variation are principles. The specificity principle is a general guideline that serves to remind us of a general observation that applies most of the time, but not all the time. It is not an explanation for why strength is specific. We need to look deeper if we want to understand that.

If you enjoyed this article, you will like my first book (see on Amazon).

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